Military Review, Jan-Feb 11: Muddled Dawn: The Implications of the New Administration in Japan
Nine months after the DPJ’s landslide, the party’s first prime minister, Hatoyama Yukio, resigned, largely over a contretemps surrounding the Futenma issue. Japan ushered in its fifth prime minister in less than four years. Soon the ink was spilled again, this time declaring Japan ungovernable. Has there indeed been a new dawn for the Rising Sun? Should Americans be worried, as some pundits seem to be, about the alliance, or more recently, Japan’s reliability? Probably the questions most Americans would ask are: Why should we care? Why do we still have troops in peaceful Japan more than 60 years after World War II? Why is Japan important, and why is it unique?